Solving the ecological puzzle of mycorrhizal associations using data from annotated collections and environmental samples – an example of saddle fungi. Issue 4 (1st July 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hwang, Jonathan; Zhao, Qi; Yang, Zhu L; Wang, Zheng; Townsend, Jeffrey P.
• Is Part Of: Environmental microbiology reports. Volume 7:Issue 4(2015)
• Page Start: 658
• Page End: 667
• Publication Date: 2015-07-01
• Subjects: Microbial ecology -- Periodicals; Environmental Microbiology -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 579.17
• DOI: 10.1111/1758-2229.12303
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1758-2229

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title>Summary</title> <p>The relation between ecological and genetic divergence of <italic>Helvella</italic> species (saddle fungi) has been perplexing. While a few species have been clearly demonstrated to be ectomycorrhizal fungi, ecological roles of many other species have been controversial, alternately considered as either saprotrophic or mycorrhizal. We applied SAT<sc>é</sc> to build an inclusive deoxyribonucleic acid sequence alignment for the internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of annotated <italic>H</italic><italic>elvella</italic> species and related environmental sequences. Phylogenetic informativeness of ITS and its regions were assessed using P<sc>hy</sc>D<sc>esign</sc>. Mycorrhizal lineages present a diversity of ecology, host type and geographic distribution. In two <italic>H</italic><italic>elvella</italic> clades, no <italic>H</italic><italic>elvella</italic> ITS sequences were recovered from root tips. Inclusion of environmental sequences in the ITS phylogeny from these sequences has the potential to link these data and reveal <italic>H</italic><italic>elvella</italic> ecology. This study can serve as a model for revealing the diversity of relationships between unculturable fungi and their potential plant hosts. How non‐mycorrhizal life styles within <italic>H</italic><italic>elvella</italic> evolved will require expanded metagenomic investigation of soil and other environmental samples along with study of <italic>H</italic><italic>elvella</italic> genomes.</p> </abstract>